I finally got our order for Christmas cards placed with Shutterfly.  Their site was down on me for a few days, so they will be a little late.  You are sure to get one by Christmas day, it just might be Christmas Eve before it shows up in your mail box.

Photo Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Well, the day has come- My farm table is in its final stages! My $30 find, combined with about $25 dollars in materials, and an electric sander as a gift to my hubby and the project is done! I’d be lying if I said I thought this challenge would be easy. However, it has been really straightforward and I’m quite looking forward to our next challenge which will be a metal table! Other DIY enthusiasts have informed it is really simple to do along as you have the Everlast Mig welding gear. I’ve got quite a busy few weeks ahead of me so it might be a while before I start this project so please don’t expect any new blog posts on this too soon. Rest assured, it will come at some point in the next few months. Let me know of any DIY projects you are undergoing yourself and feel free to give me any tips that you may have! Anyway, I have one last coat of polyurethane to put on and I will be ready for the big reveal and my DIY tutorial. I am very pleased with the outcome. I am excited to get the chairs painted and distressed in the next week, and with the bench J.Tom is going to build, it should all come together nicely.


Here is a sneak peak so far, but only if you promise not to judge my table by the photo’s blurry resolution and bad lighting.


Here is the BEFORE:

And a quick of the after:

Again, it is a terrible picture, but I just couldn’t resist posting it! So, after tomorrow I will post a real picture with the DIY How To Tutorial.

Well, we have started the third week of November.  We ran the race route again yesterday, and I was a full minute SLOWER than last week, and this was a decent run!  I worked on my breathing to keep the cramps away, thankfully it helped this time.  Uh, so I guess my 72-74 minute goal is definitely out of the picture.  I will probably run it in more like 77.  =(  Oh well, I will keep training and maybe this time next year I will have a faster pace.  So, his Saturday is race day!


Also, for my birthday my precious husband got me a massage!!! Woo hoo.  I am debating if I use it the afternoon after the race, or do it the following Tuesday morning, so I can take the baby to school, get my massage and then come home and relax.  We are headed to Memphis sometime that week, either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  I am unsure which.. so I guess that will partially be determined by when I schedule the massage.  Massage is a wonderful way to maintain overall body health; people consider it a luxury when it should be part of your regular health maintenance, like an annual checkup or going to the dentist.  It helps detoxify your body and keeps muscles and tendons loose.  This helps keep your body in alignment, which is so important for everything from walking to breathing.  Did you know your nasal passages can become constricted when your body is out of alignment?  …. ‘Just sayin.


So, needless to say, I am looking so forward to the massage.  And speaking of my birthday, thank you for the cards, phone calls, and messages online.  It’s really just another day for me, espcially since it always falls on the opening of deer season.  (hence the massage ..)  We don’t really celebrate until a few weeks after, when hunting isn’t such a big deal anymore.  haha  And I am fine with this for two reasons, A) I like to have deer meat in my freezer vs buying nasty, mushy, processed beef at the grocery and B) we have had this understanding since we started dating.  Fortunately for Lexie and me, J.Tom hunts about 15 minutes from the house so if we need him he can be home quickly, and most of the time he doesn’t camp.  


Can you believe November is halfway over?  That just seems crazy to me.  Every week since September has just flown.  Now here we are among the holidays, and Christmas is just around the corner!  This will be Lexie’s first Christmas to open gifts.  I realize people probably think I am nuts, but I don’t think we will do the BIG Christmas thing.  I don’t know, maybe I will change my mind.  I just don’t want my kids to think it is about presents and material things, but I want them to get the enjoyment of giving and receiving, too.  Ideally, we will do 3 gifts per child each year and then stockings.  I know family likes to do lots of goodies for the kiddos, and I understand that.  Heck, without Christmas gifts my home wouldn’t be furnished or nearly as decorative as it is, so we enjoy the giving and receiving too.  I just don’t want my children to think that is all there is to the season, even though they know it’s about Jesus and his birth …  well, really He wasn’t born in December and the month is named for the Romans, who weren’t Christian.  And it is a “holiday” created by the commercial industry … BUT underneath all that it has a real purpose.  =)


I remember having BIG Christmas mornings.  Everything would be set up in the living room, doll houses, bikes, and books.  There would be packages of clothes, LOADS of books, Barbies.  Jeremy always asked for some sort of figurines from like the Aliens series, or playing cards to the Magic games.  I remember getting my microscope (best gift ever), telescope, (Yes, I was a nerd, even then), and the time my Daddy got me a birthstone ring and it was hidden in a basket on my bike!  That was super cool.  I would really like for my kids to have Christmases like that, but also keep things in perspective.  Funny, I remember always feeling like I needed to say “thank you” to my parents because I was truly thankful and wanted them to know that.  But I also remember thinking “If I tell them ‘thank you,’ they will know I don’t believe in Santa, and that may hurt their feelings.”  I never really believed in Santa- there was always this sense that our presents were hidden at my Granny’s house; I don’t know if they really were, or not… I remember when I decided there was no Santa, one night my brother came running in my room and asked if I heard the bells?  I told him no, and he said that He’d heard Santa’s bells, so he must be on his way.  I think I was about 7 or 8 when he did that…  When I would ask my mom about Santa, you know the whole “Mom, is there really Santa, or do yall just say that,” bit, she would say something like “Yea!  There’s a Santa.  Why wouldn’t there be?”  I always knew that was a BS response … 


What do/will you do for your children’s Christmas?  Will you let them believe in Santa, or tell them the “truth?”

Well, I am oficially a crunchy mama … No, it’s not a mama who is so exhausted and busy she is unable to bathe all the baby funk off her body.  According to Urban Dictionary, it is this:

Well, maybe this one will work.


At the end, my battery dies, which is why it abruptly ends without us saying “bye.” The eye brow thing is new, and hilarious, and she is obsessed with drinking from a straw.  =)

This probably isn’t really much of a tutorial, since I did not take pictures of the process.  But the whole thing took me maybe minutes.  Honestly, I don’t think the steps need pictures; next time I hope to do a personalized bib, with initials.  I will post that process and include pics.  Below is my finished product:

It’s not perfect.  But it is functional; I think with practice all of my projects so far will get better.  Like I said, I hope to personalize my next bib and maybe embroider.  I will post those pictures and steps, as it is more involved, but will look much better.

When we knew Lexie was on the way, we immediately decided to start looking at cameras and video cameras. We decided on a video/camera combo. It has an 8mgp camera on it, and you can also take picture during a video recording. This was a favorite feature for me. It is water proof, small, and pretty tough which makes it great for a family with children who like being outdoors, as we do.


However, the pictures are still a little blurry at times. I would like a nice camera, maybe something these Samsung cameras. Or a Nikon Coolpix would be nice. My only concern is the durability of a lot of those styles. They seem very breakable, which isn’t very conducive to having a 14 month old. What we have now works great for our needs, but some days I really wish we had a more decent camera. Mainly I have problems with pictures that are up close, they are usually pretty blurry. We have had the user friendly Kodaks, but mine are both very outdated. I am looking to upgrade to a more professional camera when she’s a little older as I would quite like to get into photography at some point too. I’ve even started reading up on this full frame vs apsc comparison to see which would be best!


I guess for now though, if we had iPhones we wouldn’t need a camera. 😉 I have heard great things about the cameras on those phones, but I don’t see us getting those any time soon. I use my phone’s camera almost daily, but it has terrible picture quality and most photos are badly pix-elated when I zoom in or crop. I sort of miss the good ‘ole Kodaks that you shook until the images came out.


I guess for now we will be sticking with our little video/camera combo. =)


Do you have a camera you suggest or prefer? Do you mostly use your phone, or carry a camera with you in addition to your phone?

It seems like only yesterday Hubby was getting home from Canada, and now he is gone again! This time he has driven off to South Dakota. For 6 whole, long, miserable days. Oh wait, those will be my days. His days should be filled with fun, bird killing, and beer. Haha. I really am glad he is having fun, this was his Christmas gift from last year. It just seems like I haven’t seen him in a few weeks. And since he is my best friend and lexies favorite person, it make life harder some days. I do have good news! Soon, you will see a product review on my blog! I am very excited, as I have tried to get product reviews a few times, and this time they contacted me. So, in a few weeks I should be receiving a pair of rubber chemical gloves. This is actually an incredibly perfect product for me to review, because I clean houses twice a week, not to mention my own home. I have always heard that it is water and chemicals that age our hands. I am the worlds worst about protecting my hands and keeping lotion on them. I am trying to be better about it, but it is hard. I constantly have my hands in water to wash dishes, bottles, and even diapers. So, I am very excited about trying out the gloves and writing a REAL product review for them!

Please excuse typos and apparently the lack of paragraphs. The ipad editor is all weird on me tonight, so i will have to go back and fix everything later. Today marks the fifth day that we have been without J.Tom. He really mneeds to hurry back for two main reasons: lexie and I miss him like crazy and the dark beer and spinach dip I’ve been consuming for dinner are probably packing a lot of fat on my ass. I’m not cooking for just myself while he is gone, so what did I do? I went to walmart and bought snack foods- tropical trail mix, spinach dip, wheat thins, and of course my favorite German beer. I’m pretty sure the spinach dip is doing the most damage at this point, but I know the sugar packed trail mix is coming in at a close second… But the most important thing is that we miss him. Lexie isn’t eating like her normal miss piggie self, at least twice an hour she says “daddy?” and looks towards the entry way for him, and her naps have gone all wonky. I just miss him making me laugh and providing me with fun, meaningful adult conversation for the day; evidentally other people are too busy being consumed by their freakin idiot box to talk to me for 30 minutes. So I just surf the Internet and look at houses and house plans for fun. I found a website similar to TheHousePlanShop.com and fell in love with a gorgeous house. It has always been a dream of mine to build my own house but I’ve never had the funds for it. Moving and building my own house seems like quite a good idea at the minute. One of my best friends has recently done it and her new house is stunning. I’m a little jealous, I have to admit! Tonight lexie and I went for a run, and on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I run with my group, so I’m not only sitting on my butt all night. I do get out some, haha. I’d much rather have Jtom to talk with and spend my evening. Ha, funny story- I poured a beautiful franziskaner with a perfect head on it, took a picture and sent it to him with the caption “wish you were here.”. He sent me a picture of the beer he was drinking which said “wish you were here, too.”. Now I realize this probably makes us sound like alchies to this who don’t know us that well, but you must understand that jtom and I share a love of many things, one of which is a good dark beer. But he had good cigars to go with his, while I was stuck with just the beer. We also share the enjoyment of a good cigar… I miss my best friend. But he did get to call from Canada, get this, through gmail! Gmail has a calling feature, which is free. This is super great since he couldn’t find an international calling card during his flights from Oregon to Canada. Oh, the world in which we live these days. I remember when calling cards and 1800 collect were the only ways to talk to your parents out of state, let along out of country. The call was very static-y and his voice didn’t sound quite the same, but I’m still thankful for the chance to talk to him, so thank you gmail. 🙂 So, I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while … Well, I have I guess, I just haven’t sat down to do it. Last week, my 13 month old told me she wanted her diaper changed. My THIRTEEN MONTH OLD. Seriously. I’m serious. I was headed from the kitchen to the living room, cup of coffee in hand and baby in towhee, when she wanted through the baby gate. I reached for her hand and told her we were going to “go play.” she proceeded to throw herself down (which she is doing more frequently these days… ), whine and cry “mama mama.”. So I got on her level and told her to “use your words, mama doesn’t answer to whines,” which is when she did it! She looked up at me, red faced and said “booty! Booty!”. So then, realizing what she wanted, I asked”you need your diaper changed?”. She hopped up, grabbed the gate, I opened it while she totted through. She then walked to the dresser and looked up at the changing table. I mean, seriously. Genius, no? Needless to say, I am so very proud. But I don’t think that means she is ready to potty train; everyone says if they can tell you it need changed it’s time to work on potty training but I think she only knew it needed changed because it was very soaking wet; I hadn’t changed her since I picked her up from school and I don’t know the last time they changed her before I got her. So it had prob been a while…. Anyways. Pretty cool. What’s not so cool is that the fits and whining are becoming more frequent. I try not to react to those behaviors, but I don’t know exactly what I should be doing. I really need to get some books on behaviors, because someone has a bit of a temper. I’m just not sure what to do. I mean, I know the technicals: if you know what triggers them, don’t do it, distract distract distract. But I mean, when she is refusing to eat I can’t shovel it into her mouth. And now she turns her head the opposite direction, it’s rather frustrating. I will walk away, give her a minute or five, and then try again. She will usually eat a few more bites and then refuses again. So I’m pretty sure it is all just power struggles and she wants to win. But I will always win. I think .. Well, I hope. Hopefully when daddy gets home all will be right with the world, at least for a little while. ———- On a happier note, my daddy came to visit us this weekend! It was a lot of fun, lexie enjoyed playing with him. They read her favorite book, snuggled, and played with her toys. She really enjoyed teasing him, which was pretty funny. Hopefully he can make it in town more often so we can see him more. I know it is hard for family in Memphis to get here very often. But maybe between us coming there and them coming here, she will get to know everyone better. So my daddy was here Saturday and sunday we did nothing. Lexie wouldn’t nap, I think we spent all day just trying to get a nap in, and she finally dozed off during the time I was supposed to go to a lunch with my girlfriends. So needless to say, nap trumps luncheon. today I did what is left of laundry, did the floors, and washed diapers. I also made lexie some food, apples, spaghetti, and sweet potatoes are all in the freezer. This week will be spent mostly just waiting for jtom to get home. No big plans. But, I will try to get up some of the pictures JTom sent me from Oregon and Canada, as well as some from the weekend with grandaddy Payne, oh, I almost forgot- while my dad was here, lexie was saying “grandaddy” but it mostly came out “nandaddy.”. Pretty sweet, none the less.